Search results for " SOIL"

The impractical supremacy of the local identity on the worthless soils of Mappano

2016

Introduction Soil is under pressure worldwide. In Italy, in the last two decades, land consumption has reached an average rate of 8 m2, demonstrating the failure of urban planning in controlling these phenomena. Despite the renewed recognition of the central role of soil resources, which has triggered numerous initiatives and actions, soil resources are still seen as a second-tier priority. No governance body exists to coordinate initiatives to ensure that soils are appropriately represented in decision-making processes. Global Soil Partnership draws our attention to the need for coordination to avoid fragmentation of efforts and wastage of resources. Both at a global and at a local level, …

Mulching practices for reducing soil water erosion: A review

2016

Abstract Among the soil conservation practices that are used, mulching has been successfully applied to reduce soil and water losses in different contexts, such as agricultural lands, fire-affected areas, rangelands and anthropic sites. In these contexts, soil erosion by water is a serious problem, especially in semi-arid and semi-humid areas of the world. Although the beneficial effects of mulching are known, further research is needed to quantify them, especially in areas where soil erosion by water represents a severe threat. In the literature, there are still some uncertainties about how to maximize the effectiveness of mulching to reduce the soil and water loss rates. Given the serious…

Using very high resolution (VHR) imagery within a GEOBIA framework for gully mapping: an application to the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory

2019

AbstractGully erosion is a form of accelerated erosion that may affect soil productivity, restrict land use, and lead to an increase of risk to infrastructure. An accurate mapping of these landforms can be difficult because of the presence of dense canopy and/or the wide spatial extent of some gullies. Even where possible, mapping of gullies through conventional field surveying can be an intensive and expensive activity. The recent widespread availability of very high resolution (VHR) imagery has led to a remarkable growth in the availability of terrain information, thus providing a basis for the development of new methodologies for analyzing Earth's surfaces. This work aims to develop a ge…

Taxonomic and environmental implication of pedotechnique in large scale farming

2016

Abstract Human activities that involve deep modifications of the soils and a substantial deterioration of their features are numerous and very diverse. Such activities are considered as pedotechniques and, in large-scale farming, are used only under the boost of significant economic returns. In these last decades, the pedotechniques used to tailor soils suitable for table vine cultivation in the Acate valley (Sicily, Italy), not only led to objective difficulties in the classification of these deeply transformed soils but also, to several environmental hazards. In this work after considering the pedotechniques used in tailoring suitable soil for table vine cultivation, we propose to introdu…

THE BIOGEOCHEMICAL BEHAVIOUR OF RARE EARTH ELEMENTS AS A CONSEQUENCE OF PROCESSES OCCURING IN THE VITIS VINIFERA L. – SOIL SYSTEM

2014

The geochemical behaviour of lanthanides and yttrium (Rare Earth Elements, REE) has been investigated mainly in geological systems as the REE exploitation in industrial and agricultural practices is progressively growing in the last years, to such an extent to become strategic materials. Extensive researches evidenced that REE capability to investigate processes occurring at the interface between different media such as the in depth investigation of REE behaviour is a matter of fact in many geochemical studies. These capabilities are a consequence of the chemical characters of REE that are exploited to investigate processes occurring during migrations of chemical elements in the soil-to-pla…

Shear Strength of a Compacted Scaly Clay from Suction-Controlled Triaxial Tests

2012

The paper presents the results of an experimental research aimed at investigating the shear strength characteristics of an unsaturated compacted scaly clay. Shear strength was investigated by suction-controlled triaxial compression tests on dynamically compacted samples. Collected results point out that suction effects on stiffness and shear strength can be very different for suction values applied lower or greater than air entry value (AEV), corresponding to the material void ratio.

The geochemical cycle of Tellurium in volcanic environments

This research is focused on the geochemistry of Tellurium (Te) in active volcanic environments. To this end concentrations of Te have been measured on different matrices (plume, ashes, soils, atmospheric depositions and plants). Samples were collected from different volcanoes around the world: volcanic aerosols from Etna and Vulcano (Italy), Turrialba (Costa Rica), Myakejima, Asama and Aso (Japan), Mutnovsky and Gorely (Kamchatka, Russia), Copahue (Argentina), Nyamuragira and Nyiragongo (D.R. Congo); atmospheric depositions from Etna and Vulcano (Italy), Nyiragongo (D.R. Congo); ash from Etna (Italy), Copahue (Argentina), San Miguel (El Salvador). Among with plume and rain samples, several …

Rate of clay mineral, poorly cristalline and crystalline oxy-hydroxide formation and humus development in volcanic soils of Etna (Sicily).

2006

Diffuse soil CO2 degassing from Linosa island

2014

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:HyphenationZone>14</w:HyphenationZone> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:Browser…

Influence of soil surface sealing and hydrophobicity on water infiltration

Nella tesi viene affrontato lo studio dell’impatto dei fenomeni di sealing superficiale e di idrofobicità sui processi di infiltrazione dell’acqua nel suolo. A tal fine vengono utilizzati diversi tipi di esperimenti infiltrometrici che consentono di determinare le modificazioni delle proprietà idrauliche del suolo indotte da questi due fenomeni permettendo di valutare così le loro ripercussioni negative sui processi idrologici. The thesis aims at investigating the effects of soil sealing and hydrophobicity on the water infiltration process. Different field infiltrometric techniques are applied at this end due to their ability to characterize modifications of soil hydraulic properties that d…